Deutsche Bomber-Kadetten üben an einer Landkarte (1937)

Deutsche Bomber-Kadetten üben an einer Landkarte (German Cadet Bombers Practice on a Map) - cool berichtet im LIFE Magazine (8. März 1937, Seite 54, Bild s.u.). Militärische "Normalität".

Der Text zum Bild ist lediglich eine kurze Beschreibung, wie die Zielübung vor sich geht – im Wesentlichen eine Würdigung der einfachen, aber durchdachten Kontruktion: Eine “Teppich-Landkarte” (“carpet map”) wird unter dem Übungsstand durchgezogen; Geschwindigkeit und Maßstab der “Landkarte” simulieren die Perspektive aus einem Flugzeug, das sich auf ein Bombenziel zubewegt. Mit einer Lampe, die zu den Seiten hin bewegt werden kann, und die so fixiert ist, dass ihr Strahl geradeaus nach unten gerichtet ist, zielt der “Bomber-Student” auf das vom Ausbilder markierte Ziel.

Warum und wieso deutsche Kadetten das Bombenabwerfen trainieren, und wie der Aufbau der Luftwaffe und einer “Bombenkapazität” von Regierungen und Öffentlichkeit der USA, Großbritanniens und anderer Länder kommentiert wird, dazu kein Wort.
(Von 1936 bis 1938, also auch zu der Zeit, als diese Aufnahme entstand, war der US-Offizier Wedemeyer im Rahmen eines Austauschprogramms Gast an der wiedereröffneten deutschen Kriegsakademie/ Wehrmachtakademie – siehe http://www.hausarbeiten.de/faecher/vorschau/112709.html
mit Verweis auf Bundesarchiv, und http://www.scribd.com/doc/31194027/The-Rise-of-the-Wehrmacht?query=wedemeyer#, insbesondere Seiten 73 - 100, mit Verweis auf "Wedemeyer Papers"). - Ergänzung zu Wedemeyer siehe unten, s. auch Stichwort Wedemeyer auf diesem Blog.

Keine zwei Monate später, am 26. April 1937, zerstörten deutsche Bomber der "Legion Condor" die spanische Stadt Guernica. 

Entstand aus der Übung am “Teppich” das Wort “carpet bombing”(“Teppich-Bomben”)? Beim “carpet bombing” wird nicht mehr gezielt, sondern der ganze “Teppich” mit Bomben überzogen.

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Guernica und die Mölders-Kontroverse

http://dipbt.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/15/054/1505426.pdf

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Fast schwärmerisch erzählt der Militärhistoriker Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. in seinem 2008 erschienenen Buch The Rise of the Wehrmacht vom Unterricht an der deutschen Kriegsakademie von 1936  – zu der Zeit, als der US-Offizier Wedemeyer, der gerade seine Ausbildung in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, abgeschlossen hatte,  dort zu Gast war. Wenn nur das letzte Ausbildungjahr mit den Schwerpunkten Strategie, geopolitische Fragen, internationale Beziehungen, Probleme industrieller und wirtschaftlicher Kriegsführung u. ä. noch stattgefunden hätte,  sinniert Mitcham in Anlehnung an Wedemeyer, wer weiß, vielleicht hätte die Geschichte einen anderen Verlauf genommen …
Die Geschichte hätte womöglich eher dann einen anderen Lauf genommen, wenn die Wiederaufrüstung der Reichswehr und Umgestaltung zu Hitlers Wehrmacht nicht so begeistert aufgenommen (und gefördert?) worden wäre, wie dies u.a. in den USA und in England – entgegen der Darstellung in gängigen Geschichtsbüchern - zumindest teilweise der Fall war.

 Auszug aus The Rise of the Wehrmacht  (aus Zeitgründen und wegen Copyright leider ohne Uebersetzung; Genehmigung angefragt):

“In 1935, American Lieutenant Colonel Alfred C. Wedemeyer graduated from the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.  At that time, the U.S. and German governments had just concluded a reciprocal exchange agreement that, among other things, allowed two students from each country to attend the other nation’s war academy.  Wedemeyer was offered the opportunity to go to Berlin, and he jumped at the chance. In his excellent book,”Wedemeyer Reports”, he has left a magnificent account of his thoughts and experiences at the Kriegsakademie, and of the friends and acquaintance he made in Germany, including classmates such as Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Jodl and Captain Claus von Stauffenberg. Wedemeyer’s War Academy training is one reason he became chief of the War Plans Department of the U.S. General Staff and advanced from ‘‘light’’ colonel to four-star general in less than 10 years.  (How this greatstrategic thinker and authority on the German Army ended up commanding U.S. forces in China is a story that, unfortunately, is beyond the scope of this book.)

On the other hand, the Germans did not exercise their option of sending students to Kansas and tactfully implied that they did not think too highly of the U.S. General Staff course. Wedemeyer would have agreed with this assessment. ‘‘The German pedagogy and curriculum were, in my judgment, superior to our own,’’ he wrote after the war. …

Since the Prussian and other provincial General Staffs had been merged under the Reichsheer, the old instructional methods of Prussian authoritarianism had been discarded, in favor of techniques more closely associated with southern Germany. Most of the instruction was in the hands of these southern Germans (who had not been educated in the stiff and coldly formal Prussian manner), and encouragement of the uninhibited exchange of views among students and between students and their instructors was certainly more liberal and less dogmatic than would have been the case had the Prussian model been adopted. Here, relationships between junior and senior officers was much closer than outside of the General Staff, and young officers felt free to disagree with older officers who were often two or more grades their superiors in rank, although the proprieties were always observed. This atmosphere, established under Beck (a Hessian), was continued under his successor, Franz Halder, who was a Bavarian. Even criticism of National Socialism was permitted.

Unfortunately, the General Staff course, which flourished in this climate of mutual confidence, consisted of only two parts: the first dealt with command through the regimental level, and the second with command and staff problems at the divisional level and above.  During the first year, the students received six hours of lecture each week on tactics, plus four on military history, one in engineering, one on panzer forces, and another on air forces. The rest of the students’ time was taken up by group study hall sessions, homework, and individual study. The second year the course remained the same, except an hour’s lecture on logistics was added. Finally, in the third year, the student received an entire day’s worth of lectures on tactics each week, plus another six hours. Students attended four hours of lectures on military history, plus one hour on logistics and another hour on air forces. ‘‘Each winter, the officers underwent a block of special tactical instruction (called the winter study) and each summer he was assigned to a combat arms branch other than his own, to broaden his base of experience.’’

Shortly before the outbreak of the war, the General Staff course was shortened to two years because of the desperate need for General Staff officers. By the second half of 1944, the War Academy had been moved from Berlin to Hirschberg, in the Sudeten Mountains of Silesia, and was only a few months long. Largely because of this course, German mastery of tactical and operational arts on the battlefields of World War II is a generally accepted fact.

Had there been a fourth year, dealing with strategy, international relations, geopolitical questions and the problems of industrial and economic warfare, and related issues–coupled perhaps with less tactics and more of these other things in the first three years—events might have worked out much differently than they did. This assumes, of course, that Hitler let his generals practice the strategic art, which is a very big assumption indeed. At the lower levels, the officer training schools (Kriegsschulen) taught officer candidates a much narrower range of tactical skills for the various arms, but with an emphasis on infantry training, which every would-be officer had to undergo.”

 

"Stillschweigende Zustimmung" ?

The great powers of the west did nothing while Spain was being ravaged. There was tacit approval in this silence as the young republic was cut apart by fascist bayonets. However, people from all over the world came to the aid of Spain. ... Volunteer brigades came from every corner of the globe to defend Spain as combatants, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade from the U.S. being the most well known of these (members of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade would later be persecuted in the U.S. for being ‘premature antifascists’ and pro-communist).

Aus: D. Murphy, Spanish War in Slogans and Posters
http://orwell.ru/a_life/Spanish_War/english/e_slog